NO. 6 



GREAT STONE MONUMENTS FEWKES 



31 



The Babylonians and other ancients of the Euphrates valley were 

 not inferior to the Egyptians in the production of enormous colossi, 

 while the monolithic figures of Buddha scattered through India, 

 Ceylon, Java, China, and elsewhere express the same feeling of 

 enormous or ponderous power controlling the mind of a people 

 dominated by a like consciousness. 



In the buried cities of Ceylon there are many monoliths and colossi 

 of Buddhas. The interior of the first temple of Dambulla contains 



Fig. 19. — Great sphynx. Ghizeh, Egypt. 



" the gigantic recumbent figure of Buddha, which together with the 

 pillow and couch on which it rests, is cut out of the solid rock, and 

 measures 47 feet in length." 1 " The reclining figure of Buddha," 

 says Burrows in his description of Gal Yihara (rock temple) of Cey- 

 lon, " is by far the finest of the three. It measures 46 feet in length 

 and has suffered little from the ravages of time.'' 



The colossi of China are best illustrated by the stone figures lining 

 the road or dromos to the tombs of the Ming dynasty, about 40 miles 

 north of Pekin, recalling the avenue of colossal sphinxes in Egypt. 

 These huge images take the forms of men, griffins, elephants, camels. 



1 S. M. Burrows, The Buried Cities of Ceylon. Colombo, 190; 



